The first couple of weeks after they vanquish the crossroads demon are touch-and-go. Sam spends those first weeks with a constant hand on Dean's arm, more than half afraid that Dean will disappear if he stops paying attention. But Dean doesn't stop talking for nearly two weeks straight, talks Sam's ear off morning to night, and it works: around the fiftieth time he hears Dean say, "We vanquished that bitch," Sam accepts that his brother is really there to stay.

"You just really like the word 'vanquished'," Sam says, amused.

Dean talks around his bite of apple pie and gestures at Sam's chest with his fork. "Don't try and act like you don't think 'vanquished' is the coolest word ever. We didn't just kill her, we straight up vanquished her."

"Yeah, whatever," Sam says, ducking his head to hide his grin. Considering that a wadded-up napkin hits him on the top of the head a few seconds later, though, he figures Dean's onto him.

They fall back into the old routine, after that, but somehow the old routine feels new. They were hunting all through Dean's year -- Dean refused to have it otherwise -- but Sam had been trying to figure out how to take down the crossroads demon, and he'd spent the year feeling like he was torn into pieces, stretched too thin. Now Sam feels lazy, stretched wide over space, but unhurried, full of possibility.

*

They waste two angry spirits and a poltergeist in the month of April. Easy jobs, all three of them. It feels like they don't even have to work for the information they need, like the keys to the cases fall right into their hands. Maybe the cases aren't all that easy; maybe it just feels that way with Sam's attention undivided, with no deadline looming over Dean's head.

They solve four cases in as many weeks without batting an eye. They're just having a lucky streak, Sam thinks, but something about it feels like more than luck. The way he and Dean work together, it's perfect, it's like every good thing about them has become even better.

*

Sam spends a month and a half waiting for the streak to break, waiting for the punch line. It never comes. Instead, Dean turns to him in the middle of July in Georgia and says, "I think we should hang in one place for a while."

Sam blinks at him, mouth twitching involuntarily to the side. "Yeah?"

"Yeah. Get jobs for a month or two, build our cash back up, you know." Dean's not exactly looking straight at Sam, more like at some point six inches to the right of his head, and that's kind of a give-away. They do this from time to time, sure: lay low for a while, get jobs that pay in cash and wait until everything looks clear before moving on. But as far as Winchester finances go, they're pretty solidly in the black at the moment. Dean's been cleaning up at the pool tables lately, and Sam just got Adrian Brockovitch's Platinum VISA in the mail a week ago. None of their other credit cards have bounced since before they wasted the crossroads demon. Everything's holding steady, just like their luck with cases, so Sam doesn't know what Dean's playing at.

Maybe Dean's doing this because of the streak. They haven't had luck like this in years, maybe not ever, and well, if Dean's afraid of it, Sam gets that. Better to end the streak yourself than to get used to good luck just in time for it to crap out on you.

Maybe that isn't it, either. Maybe Dean's up to something entirely different; Sam doesn't know. Either way, though, Dean is voluntarily taking a break from hunting, and Sam's not about to complain.

"I bet Maine's nice this time of year," Sam says mildly.

"You would pick somewhere that's a thousand miles away," Dean grumbles. He gets on I-95 as soon as he can and straight-shoots it north.

*

South Harpswell, Maine is on the coast; even so, it's not much of a tourist town. Lots of lobster fishing, most of which gets freezer-packed and shipped to up-scale restaurants out of state. Dean gets a job at the local garage, mostly on the strength of the Impala's condition. "I told you there was a reason I wax her once a week, Sammy," Dean says smugly.

"Yeah," Sam says, "it's because you're obsessed with your car, that's why."

Dean punches him on the arm good-naturedly. It's hard not to grin when Dean's grinning, though, when he's so pleased with himself for having landed the job.

They spend a couple of nights at a motel before Dean finds an apartment a couple of blocks off the beach. It's just somebody's glorified two-story garage, in need of a bunch of repair work, but there's pretty much nothing in the world that Dean loves more than fixing things. Sam remembers a dozen rental places when he was a kid, Dean replacing broken windows, mending ripped screen doors. It's the same urge that makes him good with cars -- he likes to tinker -- and Sam isn't going to get in the way of it. It makes him happy; house repairs and engine work have always been Dean's version of Legos. There isn't any point in reminding him that they're going to be here for a month or two at most, just through the end of the summer, because well, far be it from Sam to spoil Dean's fun.

*

Dean settles in at the garage right away. It takes Sam a little longer; he doesn't just mesh with the people here the way Dean does, backcountry sliding effortlessly into his accent. Sam feels strange, overeducated in all the wrong ways. He hangs out at the garage for the first few days, but then Dean kicks him out.

"For the good of the cars, Sam. I can hear them groaning in pain when you're around. 'Please don't let him touch me, Dean!'"

"Har-dee-har-har," Sam replies, and leaves.

Sam needs a job, he knows that; thing is, he doesn't have the first idea of where to start looking for one in South Harpswell. He spends a few days walking the beach aimlessly, collecting seashells for lack of anything better to do.

When Dean finds the collection a few days later he raises an eyebrow and asks, "You gonna make me a seashell necklace?"

Sam scowls where Dean can't see but plays along. "Yeah, I was thinking matching ones, maybe with a BFF charm in the middle."

"Aww, ain't you cute," Dean twangs, laying a huge drooly kiss on Sam's neck.

"Gross!" Sam yells. "Get off!"

Dean latches an arm around Sam's neck. "You know you love it."

Sam glares as Dean chuckles and leaves the room, then lets out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding.

"You make me my dinner yet, bitch?" Dean calls from the bathroom.

"I hate you," Sam intones, putting a pot of hot dogs and a can of baked beans on the stove. He really needs to get a job.

*

By some unspoken rule they're not researching cases while they're in Maine, but Sam's jobless and bored, so he heads to the public library anyway. Three years of living with Dean have turned scanning the premises for attractive women into a habit for Sam, too, though he hopes Dean never learns it. The sole librarian, though, is a grandmotherly type named Marjorie. Her face is deeply lined and she's read every book in the library twice and then some. Sam ends up talking to her until the library closes, with rare breaks when people come in. "Business is scarce during the week, love," she explains. "Saturdays and Sundays, though, hoo boy." And somehow, at the end of the day, Sam finds himself with an offer to tutor some of the local middle schoolers in English and math over the summer.

"You're a smart boy," Marjorie says, "and these kids could really use the push, no joke. It probably won't pay that much, but if it'll keep them from repeating a grade--"

"I'll do it," Sam says.

Marjorie beams. "Great! Oh, and you and your brother are coming over for dinner tomorrow night. I'll cook up some meatloaf."

Sam grins back at her. "That'll convince Dean," he says.

*

Sam starts tutoring first thing the next morning. Immediately it's clear that it's going to be a challenge, but a good one: puzzling out how to explain literature to these kids so that they understand and start to like it, reviewing algebra problems in different ways until the logic of them clicks. It's not going to happen instantly, Sam knows, but there's potential here, in some of these kids from backwoods Maine, and even a few days in Sam already feels like he's making a difference. And yeah, he's made a difference in people's lives before; he's saved them from ghosts and demons and supernatural creatures, but this is making a difference of the ordinary kind, the kind he can talk to anybody about, and it's a heady feeling, a rush in his gut.

It's weird, though. A week into Sam's job, then two, and every time Sam comes home Dean's scowl lines deepen. Sam can't figure it out. It's nothing at the garage, he's asked; they're making plenty of money, especially now that both of them are working; and Dean likes Maine, he can't deny that. But somehow, now that Sam's starting to like being in Maine, too, it's like Dean can't let them both be happy there at once. But whenever Sam tries to bring it up, Dean swears he's fine. And maybe Sam doesn't push as hard as he could, because well, Dean doesn't want to talk about it, and probably it's not that big of a deal, anyway. So Sam tries not to think about it, after a while, tries to push it to the back of his mind. It's pretty easy not to think about things, as it turns out.

So everything goes on like that for a while, which is to say, just fine. Dean takes on extra shifts at the garage under the pretense of making them more money. Sam tutors more kids because he really does want to help them. The money's good, though he knows he's undercharging. Marjorie calls him on it one night when she feeds him a green bean casserole for dinner, though he can tell from the curve of her mouth that she approves.

There's a niggling feeling in the back of Sam's mind, though, and as August wears on it gets harder to ignore: Labor Day is only a couple of weeks off, and with it the start of school, and no matter how much he likes what he's doing here, it's still temporary, all of it.

Sam's all right with it, weirdly enough. He's kind of ready for it. He hasn't gotten any visions since they killed the yellow-eyed demon. Dean and Bobby suspect that it's because he died; that took away his psychic powers, kind of like a reset button. However it happened, Sam's not psychic anymore, and Dean doesn't have the deal hanging over his head; other hunters are helping to take care of the demons that escaped from Hell. If ever there were a time for Sam and Dean to get out of the game for good, it would be now.

But Sam misses it. Not just being on the road, moving from place to place -- although that would have been surprise enough, that he misses that -- but he misses the rest of it, too. He misses shitty diner food and lock-picking, impersonating government officials and lying to get at the truth, silver bullets and throwing knives and sheer dumb luck, but mostly he misses Dean, fighting in unison with him, knowing Dean will have his back, knowing that no matter how afraid he is, Dean won't let anything happen to him and he won't let anything happen to Dean . . .

This, what he's doing here in South Harpswell, it's good. Lots of people might say it's great. And it is, really it is, helping these kids, but it isn't good enough. In another lifetime, it would be. In another lifetime Sam could see himself making a career of this, finishing that last semester at Stanford and getting some kind of teaching certificate, coming back to Maine and teaching. It would be a wonderful thing, in another lifetime, but in this one it isn't enough. There's no way it could be enough.

*

By the end of August, Sam's already certain that he's going to leave South Harpswell. He has to. School starts back up on September fourth; Sam decides he'll stay until then, so the kids don't have a break between what they learned in the summer and what they'll learn at the start of school, so maybe they'll stay in good habits.

The closer to the end of August they get, though, the weirder Dean's acting. He's not around very often, and when he is, he's distant, distracted, worrying his bottom lip. They've hardly been talking, these days, albeit not for lack of trying on Sam's part. Sam's been laying easy gambits, ones Dean should be able to joke his way through in his sleep, and Dean's giving him one-word answers if anything at all. It's throwing Sam a fast one, because much as Dean tries to avoid deep conversation, he'll dominate casual back-and-forths all day long. It's almost like he's trying to pretend Sam doesn't exist, and Sam doesn't know what to do about it.

Sam wonders idly if Dean's got a girlfriend he's not admitting to -- seeing as Dean's not admitting to anything right now, it's not that far-fetched -- and for a moment Sam has the horrible thought that Dean will want to stay behind with her and his garage and his newly-renovated apartment and his new life when Sam says he wants to leave at the beginning of September. But no, that doesn't make any sense; if Dean had a girlfriend he was that serious about, he would have told Sam about her. No matter how mad he was at Sam, he would have at least told Sam that was what was going on. Sam's still got a bit of doubt, though, at the thought of it, because the thing is, he doesn't know what's making Dean act this way, and Sam can't automatically dismiss the thought the way he'd like to. The idea of Dean having a girlfriend he's not telling Sam about makes Sam's guts squirm.

Dean doesn't have a girlfriend, though. Sam knows it when he thinks about it carefully. Dean doesn't have a girlfriend and everything will be fine once they leave Maine. They just need to get through these next few days and then they'll be on the road again and everything will go back to the way it was before.

*

The morning of August thirty-first shouldn't really be any different than any other morning. It's a Saturday, so Dean's off work and Sam doesn't start until later in the afternoon, but that hasn't really meant that they would see each other, lately. But this morning Sam wakes up to the unmistakable smell of pancakes cooking. After the way the past month has gone, Sam's immediately wary. He pulls on a t-shirt and goes downstairs, yawning and scratching at his stomach.

Dean is standing in front of the stove, flipping pancakes in a frying pan. Sam must have made some kind of sound, because Dean turns towards him instinctively, then makes an odd strangled noise, staring at Sam.

Sam stares back, because this whole month has just been too weird, and this right here just tops it off. "Dude, what are you doing?" Sam asks finally. "Seriously, cooking? I thought I was supposed to be the woman in this relationship."

Dean turns back to the pancakes, but that doesn't hide the bright flush spreading on his neck. "Just thought you might want some pancakes," he mumbles to the wall.

"I mean, yeah," Sam says, even more confused than before. "Sure." He loads up a plate, drizzles the syrup he finds on the counter over the pancakes and sits down at the table. The first bite surprises him -- they're good -- but then again Dean cooked for them right up until Sam graduated from high school, didn't he, every time they stayed somewhere with a stove?

Maybe the best thing to do here would be to leave well enough alone, just smile and eat the pancakes and wait for Dean to work up to saying whatever it is he's planning on saying, because that's what the pancakes are: distractionary tactics, a way of getting Sam nice and loose. He should really just let Dean get away with it, but Sam's been letting Dean get away with things all summer and he's sick of it, impatient. After three bites of pancakes Sam sets his fork down and says, "Well, what is it?"

Dean keeps his back turned. "What is what?"

"This," Sam says, gesturing; even though Dean's back is still turned, Sam's sure he knows what Sam means. He clarifies anyway: "This whole pancake breakfast thing. Dude, what's up with you?"

He's met with silence, and that's how Sam knows: it's something big, something no pancake breakfast could possibly prepare him for. Sam still has no idea what it could be, but he's getting angry already, even without knowing.

Dean turns and looks at him, and it's like Sam can see his thought process. Dean's planning on hedging for a while, trying to throw Sam off the track of whatever this is -- but then Dean visibly changes his mind, decides to shoot straight.

Sam knows how to read his brother's face, knows he's read it right, which is why it throws him when Dean says, "The September money is on the nightstand."

Sam just stares. "The September money? What are you talking about?"

Dean grits his teeth. "The money for September's rent. $400. It's all in an envelope on the nightstand."

"September's rent?" Sam echoes. "I thought we were only going to stay for a couple of months."

"Yeah, that's right." Dean pushes a hand through his hair. Sam can tell that he's nervous. He hasn't gotten a haircut in a long time; his hair is starting to hang over his ears.

"So why would we need rent money for September?" Sam asks, logically.

Dean hesitates for the barest fraction of a second, then says, "Not we. Sam, I'm leaving in the morning."

Sam is standing up before he even realizes what he's doing. "You're joking."

"No," Dean says, a half-laugh escaping from his mouth. "No." And then he says in a rush: "You love it here, Sam, and you're doing good stuff with those kids, really good. You got me out of the deal, and you can get out now, without me in the way, you can get out and get married and have a normal life--"

"Is that what you think I want?" Sam interrupts.

"It's what you've always wanted," Dean half-whispers.

Sam's so angry he's shaking, fingers curling into fists. It's only with great effort that he doesn't walk right over and punch Dean in the face. "Maybe that's what I wanted when I was in high school," Sam spits, "or three years ago, but people change, Dean! What were you going to do, walk out of here and leave me behind and go off and hunt by yourself?"

"I thought you'd want that," Dean says, but uncertainty is beginning to creep into his voice.

"Then you're a fucking idiot!" Sam yells. "God damn it, Dean, I thought you knew. After the deal -- I thought you knew, I can't do any of this without you, any of it, I can't lose you and you're trying to walk out on me and--"

Sam surges forward. He has no idea what he intends to do right up until the moment when he crushes his mouth against Dean's, digging his fingers into Dean's shoulders hard enough to bruise. What he's doing doesn't even register until a few beats later, but then Dean is kissing him back hungrily, sucking Sam's tongue into his mouth, and there's nothing to second-guess here, with Dean groaning as Sam slides fingers through his too-long hair.

Sam has never thought about this before, but now that it's happening it seems incredible that it never happened earlier. It seems that they must have always been leading up to this, that they could not have ended up otherwise. Sam pulls back, touches his fingers to Dean's jaw.

"How long?" he asks.

Dean laughs, presses his lips to Sam's mouth. "I don't know," he says. "A long time."

But Sam can hear clearly what he means. This thing has always been between them; Sam knows it now. "Yeah," he says, "yeah, me too."

Sam lays a line of kisses down Dean's jaw, slides a hand around and splays his fingers low across Dean's back. Dean's eyes slide closed with pleasure. "I can't do this without you," Sam whispers. "Any of it. Do you believe me now?"

Dean opens his eyes, locks them bright green on Sam's face. "Yeah," he says softly. "Yeah, I do."

*

They leave Maine the next morning. It's a cool day for early September, already feels like fall. Dean drives with the windows open, radio on and loud. In the passenger seat Sam sings along quietly, his arm dangling out the window. He's still mad at Dean, but he thinks they'll be okay.

They waste three spirits in the next four weeks, tackle a wendigo after that. The jobs should be tough, but they aren't. Everything falls into place just like before, and finally Sam knows why: here on the road, at each other's side, this is how he and Dean are meant to be.